Marty Gervais

Writing and Publishing

Marty Gervais is an award winning journalist, photographer, poet, playwright, historian, editor and teacher.

In 1998, he won the prestigious Toronto’s Harbourfront Festival Prize for his contributions to Canadian letters and to emerging writers. In 1996, he was awarded the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award for his book, Tearing Into A Summer Day. That book was awarded the City of Windsor Mayor’s Award for literature.

In 2003, Gervais was again awarded City of Windsor Mayor’s Award for literature, this time for his book, To Be Now: new and selected poems.

In 2005, Gervais was featured on a film made for TV Bravo. The film, Heart of A Poet, was made by Maureen Judge. It explores the life of Gervais as a poet, journalist and photographer.

Gervais led a group of writers to  France where they read at Shakespeare & Co. Books in Paris.

In 2005, Gervais’ first novel, Reno, was published and launched at BookFest Windsor. Taking My  Blood, an elegant chapbook based on 17 days in a hospital with a debilitating condition of Crohn’s, was published in late 2005.

In 2006, Gervais published Wait For Me, his first full collection since To Be Now. It was launched at the Mocombo Cafe in Victoria and at a reading on Salt Spring Island, B.C.

Gervais has also been the recipient of 16 Western Ontario Newspaper Awards for journalism.

Marty Gervais received a B.A. from the University of Guelph, and an M.A. from the University of Windsor where he studied writing under the celebrated Canadian novelist and short story writer Morley Callaghan. He has written more than a dozen books of poetry, two plays and a novella. His most successful work, The Rumrunners, a book about the Prohibition period was a Canadian bestseller in 1980. Equally successful was Seeds In The Wilderness, a book of essays based on interviews Gervais conducted with such notable religious leaders as Mother Theresa, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Hans Kung and Terry Waite. With this latter book, Gervais photographed many of these world leaders.

In 1985,Voices That Thunder  brought together his photographs and stories from his month-long experience of being in a Catholic mission in Peru. In addition to being a writer, Marty Gervais is the founder and part owner of Black Moss Press.

Marty Gervais also is Resident Writing Professional at the University of Windsor where he teaches courses in editing, publishing and creative writing.

He also writes a regular column, called My Town for The Windsor Star.